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US fashion king pays £15m for Hesketh estate

ONE of England’s finest country houses is to become the home of a Californian rag trade tycoon and the European headquarters of his fashion label.

Easton Neston, a Grade I listed baroque masterpiece, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, and built in 1695, has been sold for almost £15m by Lord Hesketh. The Heskeths have lived on the 550-acre estate for almost 470 years.

The estate has been bought by Leon Max, a 52-year-old fashion designer, who emigrated to Israel from his native Russia as a teenager but switched planes for America en route.

Max and his wife Ame Austin, 30, will live in the magnificent house and use the stables and the Wren building, attached to the main house, as offices for their label Max Studio, which will employ around 30 staff. The Georgian stableblock could be used as a call centre for his mail-order business.